The Arctic Ocean is the smallest of the world’s oceans, and it is the most remote and the most hostile. In midwinter, it is veiled in constant darkness, and sea ice, stressed by the wind and the movement of the water, may buckle and create ridges that rise high above, and even further below, the ocean surface, sometimes to depths of more than 80 feet.

With the exception of indigenous peoples who kayaked across portions of open water, typically to hunt seals, human explorers have been held at bay by the formidable character of the Arctic Ocean. Even with increasingly powerful icebreakers, we still are not able to navigate freely across its waters. Any ship that ventures into the Arctic enters a lonely, desolate place, one where rescue may not come for days.

In the case of an oil spill in the Beaufort Sea or the Chukchi Sea, areas where Shell Oil Company plans to drill in 2013, a slow response likely would result in extensive environmental damage. The infrastructure to deal with a disaster of that magnitude simply does not exist there.

Furthermore, according to a report published by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2011, there exist major gaps in our scientific understanding of the Arctic, gaps that make it impossible to know, for example, how the noise of an icebreaker affects marine mammals or how drilling in the continental shelf of the Beaufort Sea could affect Arctic food webs. Even the work of establishing the infrastructure for drilling endeavors could have severe ramifications for local Arctic ecosystems.

Scientists with Shell have been studying the Arctic environment, and the company has invested heavily in equipment and planning in the event of a spill. But while Shell’s leases in the Chukchi Sea alone have been reported as potentially accounting for seven percent of current U.S. oil production, it is not enough. A group of U.S. senators recently recommended (pdf) that the Arctic leases be suspended, suggesting that drilling in the region is premature.

Those senators are, I think, correct. Drilling could impact the ocean and its animals, with direct consequences on the subsistence ways of life of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples. Ecological changes could come about swiftly and could cause reductions in the species of animals on which indigenous peoples depend.